Reverse
by firetipmyballs
Summary: A different take on Fault, Season 7. Elliot needs to take the shot but can't bear the thought of being without Olivia. E/O
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm sorry in advance. Thanks to my twitter gang for sticking by me during the hundreds of times I wanted to quit writing this because it was too emotional.**

* * *

116 Lexington Avenue, NY

0900HRS

A young blonde man stands in the laundry's doorway, unsure of what to do. "Uh, I'm gonna go." Tommy adjusts the bag on his shoulder.

Patty turns towards him for a split second and then returns to her laundry. "Yep."

Tommy exhales. This wasn't his intention to make her hate him. But enough was enough. "I'm sorry Patty, we just bring out the worst in each other." It was the truth. He would miss her without a doubt, but she deserved better than constant fights.

"Thanks, Dr. Phil." Patty sniffles into her laundry basket, careful not to give him the gratitude of looking him square in the eye.

"I love you, but sometimes love is just not enough."

* * *

16th Precinct - Manhattan Special Victims Unit

1100HRS

His feelings for her ebbs and flows. Some days he is joyful; she fills his ears with the sound of her laughter. Other days he is full of rage; she pushes him to his limits, and he hates that he loves that about her. Today seems to be on the positive side. Although they directly deal with people who cannot be fixed, together they bring justice to survivors who have seen the worst of humanity.

Elliot watches her. He bites down on his lower lip, attempting to fight the smile that is pulling at the corners of his mouth. Her back is to him and she's pushing the magazine into her service weapon. "You put the rounds in the right way?" He's teasing her. Flirting with her.

It shouldn't be this easy. But it is.

"Shut up," He can almost hear she's rolled her eyes at him. She cocks the weapon and proceeds through her safety drills, pressing it into the weapon clearing trap. Her hair falls around her face when she holsters the pistol. He sees her smile beneath her bronze hair.

If he were being honest with himself he likes it better when it's darker. It matches her eyes perfectly. When they argue and things get heated, her eyes seem to get impossibly darker and the depths of her beauty still scare the shit out of him.

But he closes the distance between them. He halts just mere inches from her. A smile begins to form but he is captured by her scent, her closeness. The color drains from his face, he's been too cocky and now he's startled by the doe eyes she presents up at him through her bangs. His arm betrays him and he tangles his fingers in her hair, tucking the loose strands behind her ear.

Both of them have stopped breathing. He's crossed their invisible line. The line they drew in the sand years ago because he couldn't handle the temptation of her proximity, the feel of her skin against his.

In the early years of their partnership, he hadn't been afraid to get close. It was like a game of cat and mouse, who could go the farthest. They taunted, teased, sometimes he was so close he could almost taste her skin. Yet as their relationship progressed, they created boundaries. Their feelings had grown too deep, too close to the heart for their own comfort.

So they stopped touching unless it was necessary.

Now here he was, his hand fisted in her hair, inches away from her delectable lips. Olivia peers up at him with large doe eyes.

She's scared.

He is too.

She takes a half step forward. Her blouse brushes against his shirt and he shivers at her closeness.

"Guys, we caught a case."

He makes a mental note to kill Fin when he has the chance.

* * *

George Washington Bridge Bus Station, NY

1700HRS

The scene was gruesome.

The father, Simon, had been killed with a hunting knife. Beside him on the floor was his wife, Lyla. In the bedroom was their teenage daughter, Amy, who had been strangled and raped.

This wasn't even the worst part. The Clifford's son, Ryan, and their youngest child, Rebecca, were missing. Although they remained a constant in Elliot's mind, Olivia kept wandering into his thoughts. The way he had touched her earlier. The crimson in her cheeks. The way her eyes searched his as if looking for him to take the next step and finally lean in.

They had found their suspect, Victor Gitano. The squad searched his apartment high and low, listened to Huang give powerful reasoning why Gitano was an extreme risk to anyone that got in his way.

After putting out a BOLO for Gitano it wasn't long before he was spotted at the George Washing Bridge Bus Terminal. Olivia drove like a madman through the streets and parked out front.

She still spoke nothing to him about the morning, strictly focused on the case. It was a catch twenty-two for Elliot; he so badly wanted the distraction from the horrors of the case which they were so deeply embedded, but he wanted his head on straight when they eventually came face to face with Gitano. Every time his eyes caught her hair however, he remembered how he could have crossed the line.

The teller at the booth who had called the squad room with the tip had given them away. He can't blame the guy for being nervous - the media had a field day with Gitano's violence, his past, the kidnapping, and murders - the thought of facing him had scared the teller so badly that Gitano got spooked.

Elliot frantically runs through the tunnels, searching for Olivia, for Gitano, for the children. He's lost in the terminal's chaos. They had split up to try to find Gitano. He sprints through blockades of people on the escalator, pushing through the crowds below.

Twenty feet away, Elliot sees Olivia unholster her weapon just on the other side of the doorway. People run and scream. He fruitlessly fights back against the crowd, yelling for people to move out of his way. A blonde, curly-haired boy stands still amongst the blurred bodies of adults running away. His voice calls after Ryan, again and again, but the boy doesn't move.

A girl screaming takes his attention away from Ryan. Gitano stands, gripping Rebecca to his side roughly.

"Freeze!"

Olivia screams and points her weapon at Gitano, careful not to aim at the young girl. Gitano reaches for his belt and draws a knife.

Elliot stops breathing.

He can't move.

Gitano swings the knife wildly, slashing Olivia's throat. Immediately she falls and clasps at her throat, blood pouring from between her fingers. Elliot draws his gun, helplessly watching as Victor grabs both of the children and disappears up the escalator.

"Move! Olivia! Oh my God, no! No!" He's beside Olivia in an instant, grabbing her and holding her close. He tries to see her wound, but she tightly grasps at her throat, protecting the wound. His world is burning around him. All he can see is her perfect hair fanned out across the floor, the panic in her eyes, her lips parted to harshly suck in ragged breaths.

"It's okay," She says frantically. "I'm okay," Her voice cracks. His eyes are wide from the pure fear and adrenaline pumping through his veins. All of his years in the military and the NYPD combined have never prepared him for this moment.

He is unequivocally lost.

"Where's Gitano? Go, Elliot, go! I'm fine! Go!"

Elliot turns from her then. He runs up the stairs of the escalator as quickly as his shaking body will allow him. There is a crowd at the top, cowering and glancing over at another crowd. He looks west and sees Fin who amongst the crowd, looking down at the body. Slowly he feels the anger boil up in his blood. He can't keep it together for much longer.

"Fin,"

"Don't."

"What is it?"

"He killed him, Elliot. He cut his throat."

**A/N: I'm going into hiding now...**


	2. Elliot's Choice

**A/N: Fault is truly an affair to remember. It's also incredibly difficult to write. Here's the next chapter. A disclaimer: the entire premise of this particular story is to reverse the roles of Elliot and Olivia on that day. What if Olivia was the one being held at gunpoint? A big thanks to Ella and Jac, these jerks always want the saddest stories - and of course Jenna, who harassed and bribed her way into getting me writing again. **

* * *

Elliot's heart pounds unevenly in his chest. The torture of knowing that Ryan's death was his fault has driven his blood pressure through the roof.

He needs to calm down.

She tried to talk to him. She tried to reason with him. Say it wasn't their fault. But she was just as much to blame as he. His anger seeps through every pore in his body.

Fuck Olivia.

She made him choose.

He knew in his heart of hearts that both of them were to blame for this. Both of them were at fault. But taking the pressure off of himself, even for a split second, gave his heart a sliver of relief. Just from feeling so heavy it could fall through his stomach at any second.

When he thought things couldn't get much worse than they were in the present moment, Olivia had followed him from the interrogation room.

"Hey." He ignored her, kept walking. She was on his last nerve.

"Hey!" Olivia hollered this time, and he stopped.

"He doesn't know anything." Elliot snapped back at her. He needed to get away from her now. His sight was blurring, all he saw at the moment was red, red, red.

"Have you got something you wanna say to me?" Elliot had only seen Olivia's temper very rarely. It only ever came out when she was hurt. Really hurt. "'Cause if you do, let's hear it."

Elliot gave in to the temptation. He needed her to hurt the way he was. She seemed fine. She didn't have kids. It wasn't affecting her the same was it was with him. Olivia, the angel. "Why didn't you shoot Gitano?"

Olivia's mouth dropped open. Her eyes began to brim with tears, and he knew he had done it, but he wasn't even close to finished yet. She wanted to play with the big boys in this unit, she had to fight like one too.

"He was using the child as a shield." She shot back. Her excuses just kept coming today.

"How could you let him get so close to you?" He was crossing a line, accusing her of being a bad cop. That she didn't know the fundamental rule: 21 feet for a fight with a weapon.

"There were innocent civilians around. I couldn't get a shot."

"Well, he got close and now Ryan's dead."

"So, this is my fault?"

He could barely hear anything after that. The blood pounded so loudly in his ears that he just yelled louder and louder at her until Cragen broke it up and sent them to the morgue. Olivia's eyes were brimming with tears and he hated himself for making her cry, but she needed to hold her own.

The tears bring him back to the present. They had entered the abandoned warehouse, Olivia ducked left after smelling Gitano's go-to torture device: cigarettes. His finger moves over the radio and presses the panic button as hard as he could. It makes a small click, and he knows the radio is open and all nearby units as well as dispatch can hear everything. In that moment he heard a loud smack and there was no doubt in his mind that one of two things had happened; Olivia had pistol-whipped Gitano, or vice versa. He wasn't sure which scared him more. Olivia always talked down perps. Elliot was the one who always made things physical. He never cared about the extra paperwork it took. Sometimes people deserved it.

Gitano deserved something more than a pistol whip in his mind though.

_A bullet._

"Drop it! Drop your weapon!"

A shot rings out and Elliot dives to the ground, gun pointed towards the left. His right side hits the ground hard. His eyes squeeze shut in the pain but opens them again. Ten feet in front of him, his worst nightmare has come true. One he had practiced for in the academy, and during subsequent training, but now that it was happening in front of him, his heart stops. Slowly, he sits up. His obliques strain and he'll be in pain tomorrow from this and the fall itself, but his adrenaline is pumping through him so fast that he can't feel anything.

Gitano is holding Olivia by the collar of her coat with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at her head. They've been in situations like this before, but none with someone as dangerous as Gitano. He is absolutely terrified.

So is Olivia.

Her eyes are red and watery. "Drop it! Drop it!" Gitano demands, but Elliot just ignores him. He can't stand down. Gitano will kill them both. They need to find this little girl. "I'm gonna shoot her!" Gitano shouts, roughly shaking Olivia around to move so Elliot can't get a good shot.

"Shoot him," Olivia begs. He decides to focus just on her. Only on her. If they can use their strengths, they'll get through this. "Pull the trigger, don't even think about it."

_He can't._

It can't go down like this. He can't watch Olivia die. Bile rises in his throat. The thought of burying Olivia, going to her funeral, being her pallbearer – it's all too much. He manages to get to his feet, still pointing his weapon at Gitano, and by proximity, Olivia.

"You hear me, she's gonna die!"

"Shoot him!" Olivia begs, tears streaming down her face. He can't go home to an empty house with no kids, no wife, and a dead partner. Christ, she's more than that. Gitano is playing this fucked up game because he can sense how close they are.

"Shut up!" Olivia yells.

"Everybody shut up!"

Elliot remembers the beginning of this case, less than two days ago, tucking that piece of hair behind her ear. He wonders what would have happened if in that moment he would have bent down and closed what little space lied between them and captured her lips with his. Would her lips move with his? Would her eyes close? Would she lean into him?

Tears flow freely down his face. He can't take her life. He'd take his own before he took hers. The shot is too close. Even as long as he has been comfortable around weapons, the marines, shooting ranges, the police academy, he knows Gitano could move Olivia at the last second and end her life. This guy is crazy.

"Victor, there's no way out of this." Elliot reasons with him. He has to have some kind of fear of dying.

"Stop talking. You know what's gonna happen if you don't put that gun down." Gitano spits as he yells, no doubt the anger from his loss of control beginning to consume him.

Elliot falls back on his negotiation training. "Now, enough people have died." He starts. "Olivia." Her name falls from his lips so easily. Of course it was now, in a situation that will no doubt change their relationship forever, that he realizes just how he feels about her.

* * *

"Pull the trigger right now." Olivia begs. She can't take this anymore. The situation was dangerous enough, but Elliot was risking himself – his family – just for her? This was insanity. He can't expect her not to want to die for him. That's the oath they swore when they joined. That's the unwritten rule of partnerships. You create a bond so sacred, you'd die for one another.

A brotherhood.

"Elliot, pull it! Shoot him!"

"You know… You know that little girl? It's possible she isn't dead. She could be locked up in this building somewhere, huh? Or someplace else, fifteen miles away. You don't really know, do you?"

"You're a liar."

"Yeah, well, that's the point."

"Tell us where she is, Victor."

"She's here."

"She's not dead, otherwise he would've been long gone. Unless you like 'em dead. You sick like that Gitano? You like to play with corpses?"

"Yeah, I like that. The deader the better. They don't fight as much."

"Elliot, you think about me. Rebecca is dead. Pull that trigger. Shoot him. Shoot him. Olivia, shoot him."

"But you better make sure you take me out with one shot. One perfect, perfect shot. Of course, my reflexes are pretty tight." "I could pull the trigger before the bullets even hits me. Or maybe you miss me altogether. Either way, there's an 80% chance I'm gonna take this bitches head clean off. But you try it, definitely. You'll probably turn out great."

"You can kill us both, Victor."

"You'll never walk out of here."

"Right, cuz, uh… You've got some buddies comin, huh? When's that going down?" Back up should be here.

"Any minute."

"Great."

"Great."

"Just tell us where you hid her."

"You know, you could put the gun down. At least then you might find her. Otherwise, she's gonna die. She's gonna die, Detective Benson's gonna die, and it'll be all your fault. Just like the little boy."

"How's your neck?"

_Fuck you, Gitano, that's how it is._

"It's not the same thing, Elliot. You know that."

"Yes, it is, Elliot."

"God, you two are a couple of screw-ups. How could you let that little boy go?"

"Elliot, look at me." Everything Gitano is saying begins to fall away. "You can do the right thing. I didn't. Elliot, it was my fault. I would've done the same thing. Don't make my mistake." She begs Elliot with her eyes; she trusts him with her life. He can take the shot. Either way, it'll be okay. The adrenaline leaves her. If Elliot kills her, it's a clean shot. He'll get a new partner, one that won't fall in love with them, and they'll be professional. Happy. Friends. Nothing more.

"We can all walk out of here alive if you just put the gun down."

"It's all right," Olivia mouths.

"I'm sorry," Elliot mouths back.

**I'm going back into hiding for another 4 months. Bye!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters because if I did, Fault would have looked more like this.**

**A/N: Who else can I dedicate this chapter to besides Jenna? Persistence truly does pay off. I wrote this for her. Please know that this is my interpretation of what would have happened if the roles were reversed if Olivia would have been held at gunpoint and not Elliot. So everything that happens after that is up to personal opinion. Thank you all for the kind reviews, they kept me going when this fic wanted to pull me under.**

* * *

0200 HRS

MERCY GENERAL HOSPITAL

365 W 32ND STREET

She's quiet.

It's all Elliot can think of. He's a shell of the sex crimes detective he was just a week ago.

She's quiet.

Something so uncharacteristic of Olivia in this situation. She's always volunteering to take bedside duties, she's always the first to talk to the families. It's engraved in her core. With every victim she helps, every rapist or pedophile or general criminal she puts behind bars, she weakens the hold that her mother's rape had on her soul.

SVU needs people like Olivia. They're extremely rare. Someone so passionate about something because it's close to them but has a level enough head to not let it get to them for the most part. Olivia is all of the things he is not. She's strong even in the face of a pedophile accused of committing some of the most heinous crimes even Elliot had heard of. She goes toe to toe with combative suspects. Yet delicate, she's able to soften every part of her when she talks to children, women or any other victim.

She's quiet.

Elliot peers to his right, he can't help himself. He needs to see her expression and understand why she isn't speaking. Olivia's chin is tucked into her neck as she looks up towards the fluorescent lights. She exhales through her nose – a shaky, ragged breath escaping her as if she had been holding it for far too long.

He knows the look. It's one he's sported far too many times. They teach you in the academy to do this very move.

_It cuts off the tear ducts, so you won't cry. _

_Why would I cry on the job?_

If only he knew back then how much he would cry, how gut-wrenching it would feel when he attended the funeral for his fire team partner during the police academy, how hard he had to look up at the sky for weeks after the funeral, knowing that his friend, his colleague had committed suicide after just a few years on the job.

He knew she was fighting the tears to save face.

Perhaps he was to blame for the mess.

"I know you would have taken that shot, Elliot."

He squints at her. Is she joking?

"No, Olivia. I wouldn't have." His voice betrays him and echoes the betrayed feeling in his heart through the hospital hallway. Why couldn't she see what had really happened with Gitano? "I couldn't just end your life like that." In the dim light of the hospital, Olivia's eyes are almost black.

Olivia's bangs flutter with the exhale of her breath. "Why?"

Everything in Elliot's view becomes tighter. His heart pounds hard enough that his temples hurt. He's sure she can hear that his heart rate just took off. How can he answer her? That she's the one who makes him feel the most alive? She would run. His eyes shift back to her. She's taken her bottom lip into her mouth as she bites down on it in concentration. He couldn't blame anyone else – she didn't have _anyone else._ It was just them.

"Kathy, the kids – they've all left me. At some point, I had to admit to myself that this is more than a partnership. That you were something more than a partner to me. I couldn't lose that. I couldn't lose you too."

Beside him, Olivia huffs. "Well, now you have."

* * *

0400HRS

APARTMENT OF DETECTIVE STABLER

4726 44TH STREET

_Well, now you have._

_Why did she have to say that?_

Of course, she had screwed things up. She couldn't go to Cragen just yet. In the morning, she would go back and speak with him, see what her options were. An uneasy feeling washes over her. What if he slammed the door in her face? What if he sent her packing as soon as she stepped in the door? What if he had gone home to Kathy and kids?

The masochistic part of her laughed, knowing that last thought was inevitable.

_He'll always go back to her; he'll never choose you._

He chose her today. Elliot had chosen today, the worst day in probably both of their whole lives to finally fess up in a half-assed way. Olivia raises her hand to knock but decides against it, trying the door. It's unlocked. Just like Elliot to give absolutely no fucks about his own safety after a day like today.

Inside his apartment, Elliot sits with his back to the door. The television is quiet – too quiet for him to not have turned at the sound of her entrance. She chews her lip. There have been very seldom times when Elliot has been like this, and none of them have been remotely easy to deal with.

Once, after a particularly difficult case, she had found him slumped at his kitchen counter. At first, she thought he was sick, but when she approached to check his vitals, he let out a quiet, broken sob.

So tonight, Olivia knew it would be no treat. She was at her wit's end with everything this partnership had given her, but she just couldn't quit. More than anything, each case they worked together, the closer she got, the more she finally understood why Elliot was the way he was.

There was a deep, driving need within her to push herself to be there for the victims. A dark past. A darker childhood and conception. Elliot, however, saw his wife, his daughters, in every victim. He wanted the pedophiles, rapists, perverts, no-good-doers off the streets because he needed every woman in his life to be safe. With every perp, he slammed, slapped, punched, kicked – a little bit of control over the things his family would see came back to him.

Olivia sheds her coat and folds it over the first dining room chair she sees. In the darkness, Elliot doesn't stir. His back is broad, the light of the tv spilling over his shoulders and stretched out arms. The only movement he makes is to press the beer bottle to his lips and back down again. With another pass of her tongue over her lips, Olivia swallows her nerves and marches towards him, sitting next to him on the couch.

In one swoop of her nimble fingers, she steals the bottle from his mouth and drains the contents in seconds. "I was drinking that." His voice is gruff, ragged as if he had cried until she stepped in the door.

"Too bad," Olivia smirks. If she's really here, she needs some liquid courage to help her through the conversation.

He adjusts in his seat. His arms are still spread wide across the back of the couch. His large body always intimidated her – not that she would ever let him know, but it did. His left arm is so close to her face, she could lean her face right into his palm if she wanted. "What do you want, Olivia?"

"I don't know." She's a bad liar. Or maybe it's that he's been able to read her so well for their entire partnership. She's never had to put walls up with him. He always knew what she wanted. Except now.

"Yes, you do," Elliot calls her out so quickly. As if the answer was so simple, so easy.

"I want the truth." She's surprised when he laughs. Olivia looks at him now. She knows she looks like shit. Her tear-stained cheeks, bloodshot eyes, dirty clothes. Her hair is probably flat too, she thinks.

The evidence of his smile fades from his cheeks as his brows furrow with thought. "I… I almost lost you today. When Gitano was holding that gun against your head, I kept thinking of all the stupid shit I've wanted to tell you. Little things. Things that made me laugh. Things that made me roll my eyes. I couldn't bear the thought that these I would never get the chance to tell you."

His eyes flicker to the cut on her neck and settle on the crescent-shaped bruise on her temple. Her throat closes while she fights the urge to cry again.

_God, she's sick of crying. _

Elliot sniffles. "I don't want to talk anymore." Her voice is barely audible. His eyes search hers for answers but all she gives him is a heated, desperate look. Elliot's mouth parts when he begins to realize the meaning behind her words. His blue eyes darken and narrow – he looks to her as if he's never laid eyes on her. As if the permission is finally there and he takes in the woman before him as she is.

"Liv-" Olivia cuts him off, sealing her mouth onto his with a rough, emotional kiss. His right-hand twines into her hair and his left pulls her into his lap. Tears spill from her eyes freely now. His lower half crashes into hers when she rotates her hips, trying to feel all of him. A low rumble erupts from his throat, a groan of need. Relief floods her and she feels him relax beneath her as if he feels it too. "Wanted this for so long," He mumbles against her lips. "I almost lost you…"

"I know."

**A/N: Please let me know what you think!**


End file.
